


Twelve

by kameo_chan



Series: The Ballad of Umino Iruka: Teacher [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:35:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/kameo_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life and times of Umino Iruka - Story #2</p><p>Iruka believes that numbers can be of consequence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twelve

Iruka is not a particularly superstitious man, but he has to admit that he does subscribe to the notion of certain numbers having special significance. In his case, this number is twelve.

He is twelve when his parents die; when his mother's voice falls silent and his father's heavy, callused hand on his head becomes nothing more than a vague memory of touch. Twelve when he bites the hand of the special attack squadron leader who grabs him when the Nine Tails attacks hard enough to draw blood which glistens and runs in wet rivulets. Twelve when he has to identify the charred remains of what he'd once called his parents. Twelve when the Third sends two ANBU to pry his fingers loose from the doorway of his family's crumbling, empty apartment and twelve when they drag him kicking and screaming to a new sterile one.

He's twelve when he begins visiting the Sarutobi household at regular intervals, because the Third's decided to keep a close personal eye on him. The first few times are strange and unsettling. The large house seems cold somehow; forbidding and desolate despite the people that inhabit it. So he takes to wandering the manicured gardens, ambling thoughtlessly until either dusk falls or the Third sends someone to fetch him. This is how Iruka meets Asuma.

Asuma is sixteen the first time he comes to fetch Iruka. Tall and ungainly with unkempt hair that hides his eyes, he grabs Iruka by the collar of his shirt and hauls him halfway to the main house before Iruka has the sense to protest or even struggle. "Let go!" he screams belatedly, drumming his heels uselessly on the lush grass.

Asuma drops him like a sack of potatoes and Iruka lands with a thud. "Name's Asuma, and if you scream at me again, I'll clock you. Now, pick yourself up and get your scrawny ass inside. Third told me to tell you dinner's ready."

"You're not my dad; you don't get to tell me what to do!" Iruka yells at him in indignant fury, fists balled tightly at his sides. Asuma looks him up and down, sizing him up. It only makes Iruka bristle all the more. But then Asuma's rugged features ease into something a bit less curt and standoffish. If Iruka had bothered to look carefully, he might have identified the look on the older teen's face as understanding.

"Neither is my old man, kid. But orders are orders and he told me to come fetch you." Iruka stares at him for a moment or two, still vaguely angry though he's not quite sure why.

"Fine," he says at length. "But don't you go yanking me around like a mutt on a leash. Got that?" And to his surprise, Asuma barks out a laugh while patting down his flak jacket as though he's looking for something. He produces a crumpled cigarette pack, fishes out a bent and crinkled cigarette and sticks in his mouth. Iruka watches, fascinated, as he excavates a lighter from another pocket and lights up. The inhale is deep, and the ember bounces like a tiny, livid red eye.

"Cheeky little punk. Well, come on then." And Asuma reaches out a hand to him. Iruka takes it, hauls himself up and dusts himself off. And then gives Asuma the most reprimanding look he can muster, the one his father had always used when Iruka messed up on his shuriken practice.

"That stuff is bad for you, y'know," he says prudely, not even trying to hide his disgust. Asuma laughs again, and Iruka wonders just how big his lung capacity is, because smoke pours from his mouth as though it's a bellows.

"Yeah, well," Asuma says with a shrug. "So's fussing up a storm and attacking a Chuunin when you're a little brat, especially if the Third finds out about it. But I'll stay quiet if you do." Iruka feels his face heat up, but nods. The terms are accepted. Five minutes later, they make their way to the main house.

After that, the house doesn't seem as lonely or forbidding any more. Iruka still wanders around the gardens, but more often than not it's just to while away the time in between his Academy training and waiting for Asuma to return from his missions. Whenever he does get back, Iruka pesters him with questions about the countries he's visited. And Asuma tells him, between deep drags that grow in frequency on cigarettes that grow in number, about places like Hidden Rock and Hidden Cloud; about the strange ways the ninja there dress and speak.

He tells Iruka about outlandish jutsu and legendary shinobi and rare bloodline limits, and though Iruka isn't sure he always believes these stories, he's always eager to hear them. Iruka likes these tall tales, and the man who tells them, because Asuma isn't like other people. He doesn't look at Iruka with pity, or ask him how he's coping. He never offers condolences or comfort, because his own hurt is still too fresh in the back of his mind. It's difficult to miss the empty seat at the dinner table. Difficult to miss the way both the Third and Asuma skate around the issue of the wife and the mother who is no longer there to mediate quarrels or mend clothes or cuff ears.

Asuma doesn't mention Biwako-sama, or the way he sometimes stares off at the horizon with a cigarette perched precariously between slack lips, smouldering away in the late afternoon light. Iruka knows better than anyone that some things leave scars too deep and bloody to ever heal properly. Biwako-sama's death, like his parents', is one of them. They don't speak when Asuma is like this. Instead, Iruka sits with his knees drawn up to his chin and memorizes the way Asuma's chest rises and falls with every breath; thinks about nightmares where he wakes up sweat-drenched and crying and alone in an unwanted and unfamiliar apartment.

Iruka is twelve when on one of these quiet days, he finds that he cannot stand the silence any longer. So he plucks the burnt-out cigarette butt from Asuma's mouth and presses his own lips against them instead. It's just a light brush of dry, chapped lips against a slack, yielding mouth. But it shakes Asuma out of his reverie, and Iruka gives him a cheeky grin. "Thought that might bring you around," he chirps and sticks his tongue out. And Asuma sits, stunned for a moment before he gives a quiet chuckle and punches Iruka in the shoulder.

"Thanks squirt," he says. "But a word of warning; do that again and it'll be your face next time." Iruka laughs at him then, and punches back, and if it's a little harder than is strictly necessary, neither of them acknowledges it. They've got their own unique way of coping; the two of them, and as long as Asuma keeps telling him about far away places and strange people, Iruka is content to think that maybe, one day, the nightmares will stop and the scars will heal.

\--

Iruka is twelve when he decides that maybe, just maybe, numbers can be significant. And that in his case, that number is twelve.


End file.
